One woman’s declaration of support for Donald Trump provides insight into the rationale of the so-called “silent voters” for Donald Trump – those who didn’t express their pro-Trump inclinations before the elections but still contributed to Trump’s victory at the moment of truth.
Asra Nomani, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was one such voter. Her vote for Trump is all the more intriguing because she is a Muslim; Trump’s declarations that he would ban Muslim immigration fed a perception that a Muslim voting for Trump would be unheard of.
.@AsraNomani is an immigrant, a Muslim and a life-long liberal. She also voted for Trump. https://t.co/Y8kRQ0ROiI pic.twitter.com/TJpY6LMABi
— CNN (@CNN) November 11, 2016
Nomani explained that her reasons for voting for Trump stemmed from a dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies – both pertaining to the economy and to the war on terror.
“As a liberal Muslim who has experienced, first-hand, Islamic extremism in this world, I have been opposed to the decision by President Obama and the Democratic Party to tap dance around the ‘Islam’ in Islamic State,” Nomani explained in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, noting that Hillary Clinton seemed to be continuing the “Obama dance” with respect to Arab terror.
Nomani said that she made the decision to vote for Trump over Clinton after revelations leaked by Wikileaks that Clinton, as Secretary of State, had received multi-million dollar personal donations from Saudi Arabia and Qatar – despite being aware that those countries were providing “financial and logistic” support to ISIS.
“That poisoned the well for me,” Nomani said.
